Insurgent Notes #4, August 2011

In This Issue
Anti-Imperialism and the Iranian Revolution – Arya Zahedi
Taksim Is Not Tahrir- Yet – Kadir Ate
On Egypt – Mouvement communiste and KpK
On Tunisia – Mouvement communiste and KpK
The Arab Revolts and the Cage of Political Economy – Benoit Challand
The Murder of the Mon Valley – R. S.
Of Forest and Trees Part Two – S. Artesian
Report from Spain: On the May 15th Movement – C. V.
Theses for Discussion – Loren Goldner
Letter: More on Madison
Letter From Paris

In This Issue

Insurgent Notes No. 4 continues to ride the rising tide of struggle that, happily, has coincided with our first year of publication.

Focus on the Middle East

Since our last issue in March, the ferment in the Middle East has intensified. Following Tunisia and Egypt in the spring, governments have been shaken in Bahrein, Syria and Yemen, and none of these situations, at this writing (late July 2011) have been resolved; quite the contrary.

Hence IN No. 4 has a series of articles on the Middle East, including the Arab world as well as Iran and Turkey. Arya Zahedi, in his article on anti-imperialism in Iran since 1953, by way of 1979, to the present, writes the obituary for that ideology. Kadir Ates covers some new developments in working class struggle in Turkey. Benoit Challand analyzes not only the revolt in Tunisia and Egypt, but some of the geopolitical influences at work in the region as a whole.

Rounding this out, our comrades in the Mouvement Communiste current in Europe have very kindly allowed us to publish English-language adaptations of two lengthy articles, one on Egypt and the other on Tunisia, providing an overview of the political economies of the two countries, historical background, a chronology of events and a chronology of specifically working-class struggles. These articles were written in a collective effort of MC comrades in several countries; we thank them for their permission to publish them in IN.

And also…

This extensive coverage of the Middle East is complemented by several further articles. These include a portrait, by our comrade Rico, of the devastation of the Mon Valley (western Pennsylania- northern West Virginia- northeastern Ohio) by deindustrialization. S. Artesian concludes the second part of his in-depth critical dialogue with Marx’s theory of ground rent (see IN No. 3 for Part One). C.V. from Barcelona gives us a pithy analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the May 15 movement in that city (which took place simultaneously in 50 other Spanish cities).

Loren Goldner offers “theses for discussion”, both within the IN group as well as by interested readers. These theses, with replies and other comments from IN comrades, will be discussed at a July 31 mini-conference and the entirety of the debate will be published in a special issue in early August.

Finally, we print two letters, one from Madison Wisconsin and the other from Paris, by readers of IN.

The Editors